“Bienvenue, mes amis!” she said, quickly rising. She was like an old bird, with bright new feathers; her skin the texture of leather, her dress an elaborate green brocade studded with rhinestones. She came forward with her hands extended, a gaudy ring on every finger. “I am so glad you have come to call.”
As Le Maitre guffawed, Sinclair sank gratefully onto a well-cushioned ottoman; he wasn’t feeling much steadier on his feet than his companions. The room was spacious—it was once the exhibition hall of a bibliographical society, but as there had been too few bibliophiles to keep the house solvent, Mme. Eugenie had swooped in and snapped it up for a song. The bookshelves held knickknacks—busts of Cupid and silk flowers in chinoiserie vases. A large oil painting, badly rendered, of Leda Seduced by Zeus hung above the hearth.
The studies and workrooms upstairs had been converted to more private and intimate use.
At present, Sinclair counted perhaps half a dozen of the femmes galantes circulating around the parlor, in clinging or revealing costume, and an equal number of customers, lounging about on the sofas and chairs. A servant asked him if he would care to have a drink, and Sinclair said, “Gin, yes. And one for each of my friends.”
Rutherford said, “Make mine a whiskey,” and threw him a cautionary look that said: If I’m to pay for all this, I’ll bloody well have what I want.
Sinclair knew he was only going deeper into trouble, and debt, but sometimes, he reflected, the only way out was down. And there was still a ways to go.
Frenchie, he noted, was already entangled with a raven-haired harlot in jeweled slippers.
“That you, Sinclair?” someone asked, and Sinclair could guess whose voice it was. Dalton-James Fitzroy, a fool of the first water, whose family’s lands adjoined his own. “My lord, Sinclair, what are you doing here?”
Sinclair turned on the ottoman, and saw Dalton-James Fitzroy, his bulky rump parked on the piano bench, beside the singing girl. Now that the girl turned, Sinclair saw that, despite her gangly frame, she couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen years old, with a simple country face.
“I thought you’d been hounded out of town by your creditors,” Fitzroy said. His pudgy cheeks were gleaming with sweat, and Sinclair steeled himself not to rise to the bait.
“Evening,” he simply replied.
But Fitzroy was determined. “How will you pay the apothecary if you catch a dose here tonight?”
This time, he was saved the trouble of answering at all by Mme. Eugenie’s intervention, who rushed to the defense of her establishment. She fluttered between them, saying “Messieurs, my companion ladies are clean as whistles! Dr. Evans, he inspects them régulièrement. Every month! And our visitors,” she declared, sweeping one hand around the room, “are la crème de la societé. Only the finest gentlemen, as you may see for yourself.” Wagging one bejeweled finger at Fitzroy, playfully but with meaning, she said, “Shame on you, sir, in front of these agreeable ladies, to be so rude.”
Fitzroy took his chastisement in the spirit of irony, bowed low over the piano keyboard, and begged forgiveness. “Perhaps it is best that I sheathe my sword and depart the field,” he said, which was rich, Sinclair thought, coming from a coward like Fitzroy—always full of bluster until the army came calling for recruits.
He stood up, his silk waistcoat straining at its seams, and clutching the girl’s hand walked unsteadily toward the main stairs.
“John-O,” Mme. Eugenie called out, “please show our guest to the Suite des Dieux.”
The girl cast a frightened eye back toward Sinclair, of all people. But he could see—under her rouge and makeup—just how young and inexperienced she was. And he could not resist one sally.
“Why not have a woman?” he taunted Fitzroy.
Two of the other gentlemen in the room laughed.
Fitzroy stopped, teetering, but did not turn. “Chacun à son go?t, Sinclair. You, above all people, should know that.”
As Fitzroy left the room with his reluctant prize, Mme. Eugenie came to Sinclair, clucking her tongue. “Why are you so quarrelsome tonight? It is not like you, my lord.” Sinclair was not a lord, not yet, but he knew that Mme. Eugenie liked to flatter her customers that way. “That is bad form, and Mr. Fitzroy has paid well for this privilege.”
“What privilege?”